The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  “I think they’ll be fine,” Sara said. “It’s just that this isn’t the way I planned it, and I hate having to tell them I can’t be there. I hate it that I feel so helpless,” she added vehemently. “I know it’s silly, it isn’t earthshaking and I shouldn’t be so upset, but, good heavens, New York to Chicago, such a simple trip; we just assume it will happen all day, every day.”

  They were quiet again, and then they began talking about the time they had been apart. Sara talked about Abby’s accident; her despair over Sean and, even worse, her giving in to him; Doug’s gloom after his fake gallery show; Donna Soldana’s lies and her besotted husband; and Carrie’s published stories. “It doesn’t look like a real magazine to me, but it could be one of those little, obscure ones, I can’t be sure, and anyway I couldn’t say anything; she is so excited.”

  “And Mack?” Reuben asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s so much there; we’re always aware of him, even when he’s away from the house. I’m uncomfortable with him around, and I think the children are becoming uncomfortable, too, mostly because he’s so unpredictable …I just don’t know. I can’t figure him out.”

  After a moment, she laughed slightly. “Such a catalog of dramatic events. I always thought we were so ordinary, but all this sounds like a heavy play, something Carrie might think up.” After a minute, she said slowly, “I thought, each time, that I wasn’t handling things well, I could have handled them better, but so much was happening, and it was all going by so fast, I couldn’t reach out and stop it long enough to think about what was the best thing to do, or even what all my options might have been. I kept trying to feel in control, but I couldn’t. That’s the way I feel now; I can’t even get home; such a simple thing, but I can’t do anything about it.” She shook her head. “There’s just too much. As if we can’t do anything about anything.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Reuben said quietly. “We do have ways we can feel in control; if we didn’t, we couldn’t get through—”

  The telephone rang. Reuben looked at his watch—ten o’clock—as he answered it. “Reuben, where’s Sara?” Abby demanded.

  “Right here.” He held out the telephone.

  “What is it?” Sara asked.

  “I don’t know.” Abby’s voice was high and wavering. “Something’s wrong with Mack, he’s …he’s awful and scary and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What has he done? Has he hurt you?”

  “No, he’s mostly upstairs, but we saw him once and he looked…I don’t know… awful. Like he smiles but it’s just his teeth, you know, all tight together, that’s all you see. And he says weird things, and says it’s all our fault.”

  “What is your fault?”

  “I don’t know! He’s so weird! He said we’d turned everybody against him, and…I can’t explain it,” she said, her voice rising higher, “but I don’t know what to do! We’ve got a movie on in the library, but it’s hard to watch when we keep thinking about…you know…every-thing. I called the Abbots and the Pierces, but nobody’s home, and I don’t know what I’d say, anyway. My brother’s acting weird, could we come to your house? I mean, nothing’s happened, it’s just that… Sara, couldn’t you come home? Couldn’t you, like, rent a plane or something, and come home? Please, Sara, couldn’t you find a way? We really want you to.”

  Sara looked at Reuben, but he had heard Abby’s high, pleading voice, and was already calling, on another phone, the answering service for his car leasing company. “We can leave within an hour, and we’ll drive straight through. I’m pretty sure we can be there by morning.”

  “We’ll drive,” Sara said to Abby. “We can be there by morning. Tonight I want you and Carrie and Doug to stay together. If Mack comes downstairs, don’t argue with him; don’t talk to him any more than you have to. You don’t know what might make him angry, so just be friendly and don’t get into big discussions. You can tell him we’re on our way home, in fact, you should tell him that; you can say we left a few hours ago. If he bothers you again, keep calling the Pierces and the Abbots; they’ll be home eventually. I’ll keep calling, and you call me whenever you feel like it. Anytime, okay?”

  “Okay, but how long will it take you?”

  “I really don’t know. I told you Reuben thinks we’ll be there in the morning. I’ll let you know where we are each time I call. We’ll be there as soon as we can, I promise.”

  She stood up and looked at her watch. Ten-fifteen. “We’re on our way,” she said.

  FIFTEEN

  Carrie hated the house without Sara in it. Actually, she didn’t really hate it, because she loved it, but it wasn’t the same house with Sara gone. All the rooms were big and hollow as if some giant took a beautiful apple and cored out all its insides, so the shape was still the same, but everything else was different, and she and Doug and Abby couldn’t fill up the rooms no matter how much they ran around or talked as loud as they could. Someday she’d write a story about it, she thought, it would have tension, and her teacher said she was good at that.

  But it would be sad, too, and weird because that’s how it was with Sara gone. It was weird from the minute they came home from school on Monday afternoon and started thinking about making dinner and doing homework and doing whatever they wanted. They’d had dinner without Sara lots of times, when she had to work at night, but this was different, because they knew she was in New York, and that was odd to think about all by itself, and then she wasn’t there to say good night to them, and the next morning her bedroom was empty and she wasn’t in the kitchen asking if they had everything for school, and then after breakfast they left and locked the front door and none of it was right.

  In fact, Carrie realized, it was just like that when her mother went to the hospital and the nursing home, like she’d died, even though you knew she hadn’t, and she and Doug and Abby sort of tiptoed around like they were afraid if they moved too fast or talked too loud something would break, and the whole house would collapse.

  But the worst part was Tuesday afternoon when she ran home from school feeling miserable, wanting Sara to put her arms around her and tell her she wasn’t a failure or a fake, she was a good writer and she’d have a wonderful career, and everybody loved her. But Sara wasn’t there and all Carrie could do was run up to her bedroom and slam the door and curl up in her armchair that Sara had helped her choose, and cry.

  Through her closed door she heard Abby downstairs, talking to Doug or maybe on the phone. A few minutes later Abby called her from the bottom of the stairs—“Sara wants to talk to you!”—then called her again, closer this time, but Carrie didn’t want to talk to anybody, so she remained silent. But in a few minutes Abby was knocking on her door.

  “Carrie, can I come in?”

  “No.”

  Abby opened the door. “What was so terrible that happened today? You wouldn’t even talk to Sara!”

  “Nothing happened, I mean… nothing! Abby, could you just leave me alone?”

  “Sara’s coming home, but not—”

  “I know she is! I’m waiting for her! Just leave me—what time’s her plane?”

  “They can’t get one, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. For some reason the airports are shut down, and none of the airplanes can fly, so maybe she won’t be home tonight.”

  “She has to come back tonight! I need her.”

  “We all need her. She said they’d get here as soon as they could, they’ll rent a plane or something.”

  “But when will she get here? What am I supposed to do till then?”

  “Do you want to talk to me?”

  “No. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Damn it, Carrie, I’m just trying to help.”

  “Don’t yell at me! Please.”

  “We all want her home, you know.” Involuntarily, Abby looked toward the third-floor stairs, then back to Carrie. “We just have to wait, and take care of ourselves until then.”

  Carrie pointed upstairs. “Is he home?”


  Abby nodded. “I heard him moving around. Maybe he’s been here all the time.”

  “I don’t like him anymore.”

  “Nobody likes him anymore. Just keep away from him. Sara says we should stay together and not…you know, annoy him, get him mad… madder than he is.”

  “What’s he mad about?”

  “How should I know?”

  “He looked mad last night, when he ran past me. Maybe he’s gone crazy, seeing demons and ghosts and enemies everywhere. It’s pretty scary.”

  “Come downstairs, Carrie, let’s do things together. We’ll do our homework in the library, and then we’re going to O’Fame to dinner.”

  “I’ll come down in a while.”

  “Come down now!”

  “I will in a little while! You can’t tell me what to do; you’re not Sara, you know!”

  “I’m in charge of the house! And I’m ordering you—”

  “Don’t yell at me! And you can’t order me around! I’m not a baby; I’m thirteen years old and I’ll come down when I feel like it!”

  Abby stood indecisively. Her shoulders slumped. “I’m glad I’m not Sara,” she muttered. “Fifteen minutes,” she threw out angrily, “you be downstairs in fifteen minutes,” and slammed Carrie’s door as she left.

  Carrie dropped back into the armchair. She heard Abby telling Doug to come downstairs with her. “Just do what I say!” she snapped, and Carrie felt sorry for Doug. She felt sorry for herself, too. She knew she ought to go downstairs; Abby really was in charge when Sara was gone, Carrie knew that, too. But there was something she had to do first: after what happened in school today, she had to talk to Mack. She had to know the truth.

  She opened her door and stood at the foot of the third-floor stairs, listening. There was not a sound, but she knew he was up there because she smelled him smoking pot even though he’d promised Sara he wouldn’t do it in the house. He might be nicer if he was high. Or meaner. You never knew with Mack; he wasn’t like other people. But it didn’t matter, if he got mean, she’d run downstairs, and if he was nice, she’d find out the truth and then she’d go downstairs.

  Taking a deep breath, she climbed the stairs, not letting herself think about what might happen, putting each foot down hard so he would hear her coming. At the top was a little square hallway with one door, and the door was closed. Carrie knocked on it, but she had begun to shake and her knuckles just brushed the door; even she didn’t hear the knock. She opened the door an inch and found herself facing a burlap curtain he’d hung from the ceiling so even if you opened the door you couldn’t see into his room. “Get the hell out,” he barked from the other side of the curtain.

  “Can I come in?” Carrie asked. It was a silly thing to say, since he’d just told her to get out, but she didn’t know what else to do.

  There was no answer. Mack turned over in bed, burrowing his face into the pillow. He’d slept all day, waking up only to smoke a joint, then sink again. Now the kid was here; what the fuck did she want? What did any of them want? Why the hell couldn’t they leave him alone?

  “I have to ask you something,” Carrie said. “It’s very important. It’ll just take a minute, and then I’ll leave.”

  “Shit.” He tried to wake up, forcing himself up on one elbow and shaking his head like a dog throwing off water. “Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?”

  Carrie pushed aside the burlap curtain. He was sprawled on top of the quilt on his bed and his eyes were red and puffy (but Mack wouldn’t cry, she thought). She had never been in his room, but it only took her a few seconds to decide it was awful. It was so bare it was like nobody was ever in it, no clothes or shoes lying around, a few magazines in a neat pile on the nightstand, bare walls, not one single photograph or decoration anywhere, just a small rug lined up with the bed, and the bed was lined up with the desk and dresser, and they were lined up perfectly with the long wall of the room. What a control freak, Carrie thought. (Sara had used that phrase once and now Carrie finally thought she knew what it meant.) The only sign of disarray was the ashtray on the night table, overflowing with crushed and crumpled stubs. The air was filled with a haze of blue smoke, and Carrie wrinkled her nose. “It stinks in here.”

  Mack narrowed his eyes, trying to get her in focus. “That’s your important shit?”

  She was standing just inside the burlap curtain and he did not ask her to come in or sit down, so she stayed where she was, the fabric brushing against her back as she shifted from foot to foot. “My teacher told me it’s not a real magazine. It’s a made-up magazine.”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “It’s not real! You lied to me! You said it was a famous story magazine and they wanted to publish my stories because they were the best, but my teacher said the other stories were lifted from other magazines, she read one of them in The New Yorker, she said, and it looked like somebody just retyped them and stapled the pages and pretended it was a real magazine, but it’s not, it’s a fake, and nobody cared about my stories at all, they didn’t think they were the best, they didn’t think anything, they just typed them. So why did you lie to me? Did you lie? I mean, my teacher could be wrong or… something. Was she wrong? Or something?”

  He stretched his mouth into a humorless grin. “Something.”

  “What does that mean? Tell me! I have to know!”

  “Why? You were happy. What else matters?”

  Confused, Carrie stared at him. It was true: she was really happy when he gave her the magazine. And now she wasn’t happy; she felt awful. But… “It was a lie,” she said loudly.

  He shrugged again. “So is everything else. Christ, you’re so fucking literal. Believe what you want to.”

  “No, that’s not right! I mean, I don’t know what to think! I don’t know if I’m any good or not. How will I ever know if people lie to me? How will I ever get help if people just keep lying to me?”

  “It’s not important. Nothing is. Christ, this is so boring. Look, you idiot, I was trying to make you happy. And I did. Why the fuck can’t you leave it that way? When things are good, leave them alone.”

  “I can’t do that.” Carrie was dismayed to feel tears running down her face. “I can’t be happy if it isn’t true.”

  “Nothing’s true, for Christ’s sake. Everything’s a lie. You work it out; I’m not responsible. You’re an idiot, you and your whole family, and you bore the hell out of me, so get the fuck out and tell your asshole brother and sister to stay out, too.”

  Carrie caught her breath as the enormity of Mack’s words sank in. “You really think we’re idiots? You don’t love us? Or even like us? Did you ever? Were you lying the whole time?” She stared at him, and felt a wild surge of anger. “You’re the idiot! We practically gave you a whole family, you just walked in on us and we said okay this is your family, and we loved you, and then you started making things up and saying they’re not important, but they are, love is important and the truth is important and being good at something is important, and you’re a mean person, and I hate you and Doug hates you ’cause you lied to him about his show in that gallery and I did hear what you were saying to Mom in the nursing home, about drugs, and delivering them, and Pussy being shot and you making it look like suicide, and you’re not nice and you swear too much and nobody believes you or likes you—”

  He had leaped from the bed, his face a grimace. “Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth! Who else knows what you heard?”

  But Carrie was swept along by anger. “—and you should be the one to get out… you get out of our house; we don’t want you here!”

  “Shut up, you bitch. Shut up! Who knows what you heard?”

  Carrie clutched the burlap curtain, suddenly terrified. “Nobody! I didn’t tell anybody!”

  Mack’s face was all screwed up, as if he couldn’t decide what to do, and Carrie, in a moment of awful clarity, knew she should not have said she was the only one who knew. She scurried behind the curtain, clutching it so hard its
flimsy rod broke and it collapsed behind her. “I told Sara!” she cried, already out the door. “And Mom told the police!”

  That was a lie but it just came out, and Carrie ran down the stairs, almost falling over her feet, all the way to the first floor and into the kitchen, flinging herself against Abby, who was standing at the open refrigerator. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I got him mad and I didn’t mean to, but he said awful things, and now I’m scared!”

  “You went up there?” Abby demanded. “Why? You weren’t supposed to!”

  “I had to ask him—” Carrie burst into tears and buried her face against Abby’s arm, begging to be held the way Sara held her, and Abby put her arms around her, not with the same tight comfort Sara gave, but it was better than nothing.

  “What did he do?” Doug asked. “Why are you scared?”

  Carrie shook her head. Abby’s sleeve was soaked with her tears, but she could not stop sobbing.

  “Carrie, what happened?” Abby snapped, and that made Carrie cry even harder, so Abby took a long breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Can you stop crying and tell us what happened? I’ll tell you what. We’re going out to dinner; you can tell us all about it then.”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Yes, you can. How do you expect us to help you if we don’t know what happened? Come on, now, talk to us.”

  Carrie’s sobs diminished to sniffles, and she looked up. “I got your shirt all wet.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll change before we go to dinner.”

  “Let’s go now,” Doug said. “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry. And it’s only five-thirty.”

  “Lots of people eat early. Anyway, it’ll be after six before we eat.”

  Why not? Abby thought. It’s a distraction, and I guess we all want to get out of here for a while. “Okay. Wash your hands and we’ll go.”

  They trooped upstairs quietly, obediently washing their hands while Abby changed her shirt for a sweater. When they were ready, Abby picked up her shoulder bag, and they went to the front door.